


Pas de Deux in Ten Movements

by sylviarachel



Series: All the 221Bs [3]
Category: Sherlock (TV)
Genre: 221B Ficlet, Friends to Lovers, M/M, POV John Watson, Post-Reichenbach
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2013-09-30
Updated: 2013-10-01
Packaged: 2017-12-28 00:33:49
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 10
Words: 2,196
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/985509
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/sylviarachel/pseuds/sylviarachel
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>John has nightmares. Sherlock tries to help. Epiphanies ensue.</p><p>A John/Sherlock conversation in 10 221b ficlets.</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. A Bit Not Good

“I’m off out, Sherlock,” John says, pulling on his battered jacket. “D’you need anything bringing in?”

Sherlock – sprawled along the sofa in pyjama trousers and dressing-gown, bare foot absently tapping on the carpet, intent on the laptop balanced on his stomach – doesn’t answer.

“Sherlock?”

Still no answer.

“Earth to Sherlock.” John starts back across the sitting-room. “Oi, is that my computer? Do we need to have that conversation about boundaries again?”

Finally, when he’s practically looming over the sofa, Sherlock looks up at him. “Was that another one of your snide comments about astronomy?” he inquires, ignoring John’s questions.

John promptly forgets he asked them, because from here he can see the laptop screen, which is filled with—

“ _Sherlock!_ What the hell are you looking at those for?”

No reply.

“Please tell me they’re for a case.” John looks determinedly the other way. Too late, though – he’s already starting to feel panicky, short of breath. “One I’m not going to be involved in _at all_.”

The laptop shuts with a click; Sherlock lunges up from the sofa and peers down at John. “Not good?” he asks. He sounds apologetic, for Sherlock.

“ _No_ ,” John says. “Sherlock, you deduced Afghanistan after five seconds—”

“Two.”

“—but it doesn’t occur to you that graphic photos of landmine victims _might disturb me a bit_?”


	2. Blanket

John’s nearly shouting; Sherlock looks taken aback.

“I … didn’t actually mean for you to see them,” he says. “You were going out, you said.”

John doesn’t answer, is busy calming down. Breathing would be a good start.

“It wasn’t for a case,” Sherlock says softly. Not looking at John: that’s a sign of something, but John’s in no state to work out what. “Not exactly.”

“What, then?” John focuses tightly on breathing in, breathing out.

“You have nightmares.” It’s almost a whisper. “You talk in your sleep. Sometimes. I’m … trying to understand what you dream about. To … help.”

John stares at him. “You’re serious.” Scrubs a hand through his hair, damp with cold sweat. The chest-in-a-vice feeling is passing off, but the reaction’s set in and he’s trembling in long shocky shudders. “Jesus, Sherlock.”

“John. You’re shaking. Sit down.” Sherlock grabs him by the shoulders, not gently; steers him around so his back’s to the sofa; gives him a little push. “Should I get you a blanket?”

“Shut up,” John says, or tries to – his teeth are chattering. He clenches his jaw and tries to stop the shakes by sheer force of will, which works about as well as you’d expect.

“ _John_.” He’s not imagining it: Sherlock is concerned. Maybe even _worried_. “I _am_ getting you a blanket.”


	3. Almost an Apology

Sherlock steps up and over the coffee table in a swirl of dressing-gown, and a moment later he’s back and actually seriously draping a duvet over John’s shoulders.

“And I’m going to make you a cup of tea.”

“Sherlock—”

There are banging and rattling sounds from the kitchen. John clutches the duvet around him. It smells like … _Sherlock_ , which is comforting in a way John decides not to think too hard about just now. _Life is good. Things are back to normal. Don’t ruin it by wishing for things you can’t have._

* 

The tea is hot and strong and has too much sugar in it. John swallows it in big burning gulps, both hands clamped round the mug. Sherlock perches on the coffee table and studies him intently.

“I really didn’t mean for you to see those photos,” he says, when the mug is mostly empty. “I honestly did think you were going out.”

Which John reckons is as close to an apology as he’s going to get.

“It’s okay,” he says, putting the mug down. “I’m okay. It’s fine.” Then something Sherlock said half an hour ago finally catches up with him, and he frowns. “Hang on. How the hell do you know I talk in my sleep? _I_ didn’t know I talked in my sleep, you bastard.”


	4. In Which Everyone Is an Idiot for a Bit

Sherlock looks vaguely unhappy and shrugs one shoulder at him. “It’s not so much talking. More sort of … shouting.”

John buries his face in his hands. _Jesus fucking Christ. I’m getting to be as paranoid as he is._ “Sorry,” he mutters. “I’m sorry, Sherlock.”

“John?”

He raises his head, and has to control an instinctive recoil at finding Sherlock’s eyes just centimetres from his. Studying him, again. Something else, too? _Don’t be an idiot, Watson._ He draws a long, wheezy breath; lets it out.

“Why are you apologizing?” Still the vaguely unhappy tone, but now Sherlock sounds puzzled, too.

“Because…” To be honest, John’s not sure he can articulate his reasons, but one of them is easy: “Because, just now, I jumped to the conclusion that you’d been hovering in my bedroom watching me sleep, or something, and that was unfair of me.”

“Oh.” Sherlock’s expression clears, like he finally understands what’s going on. “For a minute I thought you were apologizing for having nightmares. Which would be idiotic, even for you.”

John doesn’t try to explain that that was, actually, part of what he was apologizing for. Not because he thinks he’s been keeping Sherlock awake at night (since that would involve Sherlock actually trying to sleep, during the night, in bed, like a normal person), but because… because…


	5. Bruises

“You’re not doing some kind of experiment, are you?” John asks.

Sherlock looks offended. “Of course not,” he says. “Just research. _Online_ research,” he adds hastily, “not the other kind.”

“Oh,” John says. “Okay. Good.”

He’s not wheezing or shaking anymore, but he feels sweaty and sticky and slightly ill, and not at all like going out to get the shopping. It’s been a long time since he had one of these episodes that wasn’t triggered by some random reminder of the day Sherlock …

 _Oh, fuck me._ The shakes are back, intensified. His eyes have gone dark. _When did I become this pathetic excuse for a person again?_

“John?” Sherlock’s hands are gripping his arms, too hard. Much too hard; he’s going to have bruises. It hurts.

It helps.

“John! What-- Do you need another blanket, John? More tea? I can make more tea--”

He’s witnessed this before, Sherlock in full-on panicked babble mode. Even in the midst of trying to breathe himself down from a panic attack, John’s glad the danger’s all in his own head this time, that there’s no bomb, no snipers, no homicidal madman lurking just out of sight. No gun in Sherlock’s hand.

“Sherlock,” he tries to say. It’s pointless – but at least his vision is clearing now. He clenches his jaw and _breathes._


	6. Reprogramming the Hard Drive

Sherlock tips John’s chin up and peers down into his eyes again, disconcertingly close. “You were all right,” he mutters, more to himself than to John, “you were fine, and now you’re panicking again. Why? What _happened_?”

“Sherlock,” John finally manages. “Calm down.”

Sherlock sits back a little, frowning. “Says the man in the midst of a combat flashback.” But he does sound calmer.

John drags in a long breath, lets it out. _Inhale. Exhale. You can do this._

“Not,” he says, and swallows hard, “not combat. Bart’s.”

“Bart’s?” Sherlock looks completely baffled for about three seconds. Then he looks like John’s just unexpectedly punched him. “ _Oh_.”

And then, very quietly, a very long few seconds later, “… I’m sorry, John.”

*

The thing that happens next takes John so completely by surprise that his brain actually seems to stutter and slip sideways for a minute. When it comes back online, he’s still sitting on the sofa, still wrapped in the duvet from Sherlock’s bed – but now also wrapped in Sherlock. Sherlock’s long arms are wound around him tight; Sherlock’s head is a warm weight on his good shoulder; Sherlock’s eyelashes whisper against his neck.

“Sherlock … ?” It comes out as a rough, tentative whisper.

Sherlock uncoils and peels away from him, back to the coffee-table, and John feels strangely bereft.


	7. Entangled

“You didn’t have to stop,” John says. “I just—”

He fights his arms out of the tangled-up duvet. Holds them out wide.

Sherlock’s face is _naked_ in the split-second before he flings himself forward, plastering John’s spine against the back of the sofa, burying his face in John’s shoulder. John’s arms close around his back. They cling together as if someone’s trying to pull them apart, even though nobody is (or could).

“I was so alone,” Sherlock whispers, muffled into John’s jumper, “and I owe you so much.”

In any other circumstances John would suspect him of taking the piss, but not even Sherlock could look at him like _that_ – so open, so remorseful, so _exposed_ – and then mock him so cruelly thirty seconds later.

And if he did, John would understand why.

So instead of trying to answer what he’s almost sure is a confession of something important, he closes his eyes and hangs on tighter.

“I missed you,” Sherlock says, “ _so much_. All the time. I would start to talk to you, and then remember you weren’t there.”

“I did that, too,” John admits. He’s tempted to add, _You always talked to me when I wasn’t there, you pillock_ , but this doesn’t feel like the right time for that comment, even if he means it affectionately, a bit.


	8. Better

“I hated myself for being so weak,” Sherlock says, “so dependent on someone else, I hated myself for hurting you and deceiving you, I tried to hate _you_ for being my weakness, but I couldn’t—”

“You’re a better man than me, then,” says John. “I hated you quite a lot, for a bit there. Funny,” he adds, to himself, “how you can hate someone and love them all at the same time.”

Sherlock goes still – so still, he doesn’t even seem to be breathing. Gently he unwraps himself and pulls away so he can look up (up? Oh! he’s kneeling on the floor) into John’s eyes.

“Did you mean what you just said?” he asks.

“Yes,” says John, because he meant all of it, and then, belatedly, “Which bit?”

John has never seen Sherlock blush, didn’t realize he could. Apparently he can.

“Oh,” he says, blushing too. _Idiot. I said that out loud._ “That bit. You’re my best friend, you idiot.”

“So … that’s what you meant, that we’re friends?”

He should be relieved, but – if John’s not just imagining this – he seems … disappointed.

“Sherlock, were you— were you hoping I meant something else?”

Sherlock looks away. “Don’t be an idiot.”

All at once John’s heart is racing again, but this isn’t another panic attack: this is something _much, much better._


	9. Pulling Rank

“You were,” he says. He can’t believe this is happening: can’t believe it’s taken this long. “You _were._ You’re a good liar, Sherlock, but you’ve never been good at lying to me.”

Silence. _Oh, sod this._

John sits up a little straighter. Summons Captain Watson, feels an officer’s authority settling on his shoulders, familiar/strange. “Sherlock. Look at me.”

Sherlock, clearly startled, does.

John does his best to put his heart into his eyes.

They stare at each other for what seems like a long time, saying nothing – at least, not out loud.

Finally John licks his lips, because his mouth’s gone dry, and says, “This, what you want. I want it too. You. Us.”

Sherlock stares some more. Then: “You kept saying ‘I’m not gay.’”

“ _You_ said ‘I consider myself married to my work.’”

Accusations and counter-accusations: Not helpful. John sighs, massages the back of his neck.

“I’m still not gay,” he says. “I mean, I’m pretty sure I’m not. This isn’t about me suddenly fancying blokes instead of women, it’s … just you.”

“Oh.” Sherlock blinks, silently processing this. The look in his eyes now is something like awe. Finally he says, “Me, too.”

John tries to work out what this means, exactly, the awed look and the _me, too_ ; fails. “You, too … what?”

There it is again, the Holmesian blush.


	10. In My Blood

Having thrown caution and common sense to the wind, John can now admit to himself that Sherlock blushing is very sexy indeed.

“I haven’t suddenly begun, as you say, _fancying_ people,” Sherlock says. “It’s just you.”

“Oh.” John reckons he understands that awed look, now; he’s feeling a bit like that himself. He wants to ask, _Why now? Why_ me _?_ But he can’t make the words.

“I wanted to tell you. That day – a hundred times before then, too, of course, but – to say those things to you, when what I wanted to say was _John, I need you, I can’t live without you_ …”

John closes his eyes – just for a second, but in that second Sherlock’s beside him on the sofa, holding him close.

“Why didn’t you?”

“Would it have made things better?”

John considers this. Shudders. “No. God, no. Worse.”

“That’s partly why.” Through the collar of Sherlock’s dressing-gown, John can feel him swallow. “If you… felt the same, it would have been worse for you. If you didn’t…”

_Oh. Oh, yes, you got that one right._

“And,” Sherlock says, very, very quietly, “I couldn’t tell you that truth in amongst all those lies. It would have… tainted it, and I couldn’t bear that.”

“Tell me now,” John suggests.

“John Watson,” Sherlock says solemnly, “you are in my blood.”


End file.
